Risen from the Ashes
by Heroes Die
Summary: This is a first point perspective from Ser Otto, the blind Templar from the Elven Alienage, about the events leading up to his death in that damn creepy orphanage. I really love that Templar for some reason.


Risen from the Ashes

The Faith of Ser Otto: The Blind Can't See—The Dead can't Testify 

When you play with fire you're bound to get burned.

Unfortunately for me, my hand was forced into that fire. I could not object. There is duty above and beyond your person when you work in the Maker's light, the protection of the innocent from the sundry things worked in the bowels of magic. I never truly realized how cushy working the Circle tower was until they sent me out to hunt. It was never easy watching children try and control the dangerous powers at their fingertips, to listen to screams from their nightmares in the halls at night, to wonder if your blade would one day need to pierce their hearts at the risk of letting a demon go free, or to hear of a mage who could not take the demands of the Circle and instead took their lives.

Then they sent me out instead to track maleficarum. There is nothing so chilling as coming upon one in the dead of night in a crowded forest, cornering them in an abandoned alley in a filthy city, watching them slice their hands for fresh blood until their flesh hangs like scraps in their effort to escape you. Some collected the breastplates of the Templars that had come for them like trophies, others begged for mercy one minute then screamed at you from behind the eyes of a demon the next, but this one was different.

I had tracked him to a small village on the very outskirts of Lothering. The plains were wide open, and there were very few people that a troop of templars could blend in with. In fact, as soon as we entered, the people stared. Some followed discreetly at a distance, wondering what servants of Andraste were doing in a place like this. The man we were after stuck his head out from a doorway and knew me, knew us, on site. He did not run. He did not panic, or yell, or start magic boiling in his hands.

He smiled as we approached, standing in the doorway waiting for us. He looked like any other man in any other village we crossed but for the strange warning that clenched my stomach; like sensing the smoothness or ferocity of the ocean, I found it easy to measure magic's _movement_ I suppose you could call it.

He cocked his head, his eyes deadly. "More templar trash come to visit my humble abode."

I could see it in the way he stood that this was a powerful and dangerous man, confidant in his power. I could hear some murmurs behind my back, far across the street where people had stopped to whisper. I kept my voice down, but my hand was ready for my sword, my brother templars ready for my word. "I don't want this to end in bloodshed. The Circle is still willing—"

"Don't try and fool me," he said simply. "Templars kill maleficarum on sight. Or are you just worried about the people stupidly standing and watching. A few casualties in the name of Andraste never stopped any templar I knew."

His eyes wandered past my shoulder, settled on something, then flicked back to me. "Like that poor girl there. What would happen if, in my need to protect myself, a wayward blast of fire were to catch her?"

"In the holy name of Andraste, I will not let you hurt a single person here." That was all the warning he would get from me. I expected to hear the sound of swords being drawn behind me, took one second to glance at my brothers, and knew at once the complete power of this man. They were stilled in their movements, eyes wide, sword hands open yet unable to grasp anything.

The smile on the maleficarum grew sharp. He knew and I knew there would be no compromise now. My sword was out and in motion before I consciously told it too, but his hand was in motion as well. Light and heat blazed forth from him with such force that I felt the hairs on my face crisp. His eyes, his sadistic smile, were fixed on me, but his hand was in a separate direction entirely, and I knew his target lay in that chance fluke of fate with a stray child happening to cross the wrong street at the wrong time. My heart lurched. Resolve battled with my duty then quickened into surety.

And as a templar, as a sworn protector of the Maker's children, I moved the motion from my sword to instead dive against the blazing heat…

There was a sound that moved me from my memory into the present. I passed my hand over my eyes then over my head, feeling the years lined into my face as I surely could not see them myself. No mirror could attest to my eyes when sight had left me behind in the wash of flame from the mage's hand, a world of greyed blurs left that seemed to me what the Fade must look like. But I could feel that presence that had made the sound, a shaft of light that cut through the darkness of the alienage.

"That man's a Templar, isn't he? His eyes though…" The whisper carried to me from the kind, sad voice of a man, and I fought down the chuckle in my chest to a simple grin on my lips.

I lifted my voice to the other presence, a woman from her footfalls. "Is someone there? Maker's blessing to you, child." I felt their hesitation in their footsteps and the chagrin on the man so I touched my fingers to my cheek underneath my eyes. "Be not afraid. I still have some sight to see you by."

I heard the sound of her hand thumping into the man's chest and a wounded, superficial 'ouch' in return. They came closer and I could see the vague greyness of their bodies closely followed by the padding of a large animal, a dog it seemed, though it was healthy so it must belong to the two rather than a stray from this alienage.

The woman gestured uncertainly to herself. "I am Maerith Cousland, and this is Alistair."

I nodded to her and smiled as the name sounded familiar in my mind. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintances. I am Ser Otto. The Cousland name is noble one, my lady."

There was a moment before she responded, and I could feel the pain in her heart. "Thank you, Ser. I do hope to keep it that way."

"There is not a doubt in my mind that you can, Maerith," I said kindly. "As you can see from my dress, I am a Templar. My sight," I tapped my cheek once more, "was lost in a battle with a powerful maleficar. He called flames from the air and burned my face. The scars have healed but my sight will never recover." I said this all so the lad would not feel so chastened.

My story must have worked for it was Alistair who spoke next. "What are you doing out in the middle of an alienage, Ser Otto? Strange place for a templar, considering."

I nodded in agreement. "We'd heard rumours there's an enclave of maleficarum hidden in this alienage of all things. I offered to come as the others seemed…reticent, and these good elves deserve the Maker's care as much as anyone."

I felt Alistair relax fully under my grey eyes, but the Lady Cousland was curious still. I welcomed the questions as I saw that she was a good woman, rare in these times, and I would be lucky indeed to gain her help. She asked of my ability to hunt maleficarum and I answered truthfully, that it was hard with my sight so affected, but that was not the reason I was here any longer. "There is something else. This place…It's scarred, like me. When I came here I could immediately feel an air of...hopelessness, despair. But over time, I've felt the wrongness runs far deeper than that. The feeling never wanes, and so I'm attempting to puzzle it out." It was difficult to put the darkness I sensed here into words others could understand. Maybe she did not believe me, maybe she thought I was an aging templar that should be spending his last years in the Chantry, but there was good here yet to do whatever her thoughts. I would gain nothing for these gentle, elven people if I did not ask. "I don't suppose I could impose upon you?"

Maerith's expression was kind, her agreement immediate, and her help invaluable. What evidence only my ears could gather, her eyes could do the rest. There was something wrong here that only sight could fully attest too, and Maerith did not disappoint me in that. Blood that lay fresh as the minute it was spilt, a rabid decaying dog, and the elven beggar who spoke of 'bad men' in the orphanage—I knew what was occurring. The orphanage…a sad tale that, one that drew shivers as the memories of the children I'd known for years in the Circle twisted their faces so it was them burning along with the timbers.

I hid the thoughts from my face. "One odd thing I am willing to believe—but two is no coincidence. Let's head to the orphanage if all our evidence points so strongly to it." This woman had done more for me than I had expected, and I could feel their eagerness to set this right.

Alistair gave a small sigh. "It just makes sense we'd end up running around with a templar in the creepiest place in Lothering."

"That doesn't make any sense at all." Maerith's voice was light, jabbing the lad good-naturedly.

"Exactly. Ever since I met you at camp it seems like the world has flipped into crazy mode."

Their banter lightened my heart after the days of weakening hope, and I drew strength from them. At the orphanage I breathed deep before moving to open the door, the rotten, charred wood smell scratching at my lungs. "There is always a measure of 'crazy' in the circumstances we are lead through. But I advise you both to use care here. The orphanage is a dark place."

Their silence told me they understood so we entered without preamble, and as soon as my feet passed the threshold it was as if a heavy shadow had passed through my chest and left its mark. I turned to Maerith. "The…feeling is intense here. This is what I was looking for." The shadow deepened and darkened in me. This was not the feeling of maleficarum. This was something much worse.

"There is definitely evil here," I warned them. I could not see what lay beyond me, but I could hear the strain of the timbers under our feet as they took our weight, the strange echoes against hollow walls for a place this small. "What we seek lies further on. I will follow where you lead."

The woman took it in stride and came ahead of me so I would know where it was safe to walk over these decaying floors, opening the next door that led into the main hall. It was immediately clear to me at that moment that this orphanage was the source of everything, all the _wrongness_, I had been feeling. As clear as if my sight had been returned to me, the fading image of a child darted out from the hall, weeping as he ran, and I heard Alistair behind me take in a quick breath before settling.

I held the pommel of my sword in my hand to steady myself, certain of things that lay ahead. "Watch yourselves. The Maker's sight has been dulled here."

"Gone entirely I'd say," Alistair said.

The search through the halls and rooms was…unsettling. The glimpses of warped sight this place offered me showed tumbled rows of crumbling beds, patches of still-wet blood arched across the walls, toys scattered around the rooms as if thrown in futile panic. These children had died in agony as flames burned through their flesh. My own scars started to ache.

There was a murmur behind me, a breath on my neck. I turned, and Alistair stopped before he ran into me.

"What is it? Ser Otto?"

I shook my head, blinking to see if this false sight would show me who I had heard. There was nothing. "I think something yet lingers in this place."

I heard Alistair gulp, his voice broke on the word. "_Lingers?_ What do you mean?"

I waved my hand. "If you hear nothing, then do not worry yourself with it."

Maerith remained silent, perhaps trying to hear whatever I had, but pushed forward into the next room. The voice was clearer this time, and its voice breathed through me like that of a child singing a nursery rhyme.

_Do you hear me, Ser Wilhem, Ser Wilhem? _

I name I knew. He was one of the brothers that had journeyed with me into the village the day my sight was lost.

_I'm falling, Ser Wilhem, Ser Wilhem, today. _

Who's falling? Was this child speaking of myself?

_I'm a maiden, Ser Wilhem, Ser Wilhem. _

A maiden? A symbol of innocence? Fragility? Someone who needed protection?

_But I'm dying, Ser Wilhem, Ser Wilhem, in pain. _

I wasn't the one who died that day. Wilhem did, in a way that no man should ever have experienced.

Then the child screamed and a boy bolted down the hall, red burns covering his arms and face, his clothes sloughing off his body as flames crackled after his heels, drying the tears on his cheeks as soon as they fell. The flames were catching the children! I have to put out the fire or they'll be killed!

No…no. It's only the remnant of a memory. By the Maker's mercy, I must stay anchored here.

The blood moved and pooled in great swathes before us, slipping into the cracks in the floorboards, shimmering in the oranges and yellows of a fire that was long ago quenched. Our breathing was loud in the rooms and magnified behind us so that a crowd breathed out of pace with our passing. The dog whined and barked. Maerith scratched its head to comfort it.

"If I bark, do I get a scratch?"

Maerith pursed her lips. "Not the place or time, Alistair."

But I understood. It was just the lad's way of dealing with the fear that was gnawing at each of our hearts.

My sight suddenly grew darker, and I almost stumbled in my step. The child's voice breathed through the darkness.

"_One, two, Maric's run through. Three, four, the kingdom's at war. Eight, nine, and now you die!"_

The child's voice cackled into laughter with the last verse ringing in the empty room. Maric had died at sea, leaving Cailan to rule…and indeed, the kingdom had known war for years. "Did you hear that?" I said.

"We all heard it," Maerith whispered.

Alistair shook his head. "You guys can't tell me this is not the creepiest place you have _ever_ been in. _Ever_." He gripped his knuckles tighter around his sword.

"The Maker is with us even here, my lad. And this…" I bolstered my spirit, stepped ahead of Maerith, and pushed open the door ahead of me, "this is the centre of it."

The room was the epicentre of the darkness, of the thing that tormented and reeved the edges of the Fade to drag the spirits of dead children back to the scene of their deaths. It breathed in evil, staring through the darkest and hottest places of the fire. My fear shook my hands for but a moment. I had faced things as a templar that were darker still, and in the sight of the Maker it would fall.

Maerith and Alistair held their swords ready in their hands as I took a forward position, knowing that the thing would be drawn to a templar presence first. The demon showed itself remarkably quickly, its voice booming over the sound of the floorboards groaning, and I could feel my companion's guard themselves against it. "Leave mortal. You do not belong here."

This was my duty. To place myself before those who might be harmed. The Chant was my armour. "Blessed be the Maker and His prophet Andraste—"

The voice lashed the air. "Your pathetic Maker is nothing compared to my glory!"

I ignored its empty, baseless taunts and stalked toward the feeling of utter darkness. "I command you show yourself, demon! Hide in the shadows no more!"

"You dare to command me?" The eyes from the shadows formed itself around the voice. The floorboards quaked under the aging blood, and fire writhed through the cracks, raising its body from the heat of the flames.

I began my chant once more, knowing the demon could not face the truth of the Maker's light. "Though the Golden City has fallen, I have seen your face and your light, I am your—"

"Save your pathetic Chant for your sermons, Templar," it hissed.

I stood against it now with the might of the Maker at my side. The demon had lost with its show of denial and impatience. The two innocents behind me would not be harmed. "The Maker will send you back to the abyss, foul one."

The fire coiled. Its voice boiled in scorn. "The Maker? There is no Maker here. But there are demons…"

A charred book was hurled from the floor straight toward the blindness of my eyes, but the Maker granted me a measure of sight in this evil place, and I swatted the book aside like it was a falling leaf. Its power was nothing when the truth of the Maker shone through. "I hear not your blasphemy, demon. By Andraste and all the Divine after Her, I order you to face me!"

The two behind me were silent, but I felt their wills: strong, determined.

The demon raged in its futile efforts to cower us, flinging embers that turned the dry wood into smoldering promises of fire. "You delusional fool! Your pathetic faith will be your death."

We faced it as it charged us, Alistair yelling at the darkness, Maerith proving her family name's worth, the dog right at her heels. Though the flames scorched skin and the demon thrashed with the power of its kind against our weak, fleshly bodies, I knew we had the upper hand. There was nothing false that could stand before the Maker. Our swords rang again and again against the demon, it howled and spat flame, scorching the dog's ear, lighting Maerith's tunic, heating Alistair's armour into unbearable temperatures. But the darkness waned before us, and hope grew in my heart.

The alienage would be free of this oppression.

The children would rest in peace.

The Elves would have some small measure of relief in this place.

The flames sputtered at our feet, and Alistair thrust his sword into the demon's heart, twisting the blade as its remains dissipated into nothing but embers. We breathed heavily in our victory and shared smiles, feeling the darkness lift from the orphanage. I whispered a prayer of thanks to the Maker and turned to my truer and braver companions than many of the Templar's I had travelled with had been.

"We have done it, friends. I feel the darkness receding from this place."

Alistair laughed in the high-energy nervous way. "Thank the Maker for that."

"Indeed," I said. "I have seen the work of demons before. Some maleficarum I confronted consorted with them. But the Maker must have guided our—"

And then the vision struck me once more as it had this morning: the maleficar with his wretched smile, his hand outstretched to the girl behind my back, and I had a choice…

There was less than a second to move. I had no regrets. I lost my sight the last time, this time I would lose something else.

_But my place is here, between you and the Maker's children, demon._

I shifted on my feet, and knew without sight that I was where I needed to be. I hardly felt the blade pierce my heart, just as Alistair's had pierced its. The Maker had called me home. I would be in the sight of Andraste. These people my life had chanced upon would be safe and have the rest of their lives to live and love.

I walked into a different sort of fire then and true light flooded clear eyes.


End file.
